I think they must have listened in on my life...

That's my dad for you

He was convinced it would help him do better. Later, he also got out his gloves and face mask. And he wonders why we were embarrassed as teenagers!

Just an accident

This morning in the bath, Jell swallowed the bathtub knob-thingy that you pull out to turn the shower on. Swallowed it. When asked why it was in her mouth in the first place, she cried, "I don't know. It was maybe an accident."
5 minutes after getting over the trauma, washing up, and getting out of the bath, Jell shut Meri's hand in a closet door. Instead of re-opening it and relieving her sister, she ran to us, exclaiming, "I just did something on accident. I just did something on accident." About then Meri found her voice and started screaming her head off. With her hand still closed in the closet door.
It's that kind of morning.
(They're both okay. Meri's hand is a bit bruised, but she says it'll be all better later when she goes to Grammy's house. Jell was pretty traumatized and feels uncomfortably like something large just went down her throat but the nurse said since it wasn't a magnet or a battery, and was small enough to go down, it's small enough to come out.)
Oh boy.

"Would I be called a fire girl?"

What we learned from our field trip to the Fire Station:
1. Don't pull any levers. In the front room where they display the antique fire truck, before the firemen were even there to talk to us, one of our kids (Meri got blamed but who knows) pulled a small lever on a pipe and suddenly there was water spraying across the room. None of the moms had seen what happened so we didn't really know how to stop it. Needless to say, the floor got very wet before anybody came to help. Oops.

2. Jell learned "they drive in the fire truck." Here's the girls giving it a try (lots of the kids were very disappointed that they didn't actually get to drive the truck. I don't think they trusted them anywhere near all those levers ... with good reason.)

3. Firemen with their masks on sound like Darth Vader and make Jell nervous. She finally did get brave and went up and knocked on his face mask, but she spent most of the time with her hands over her ears (what she does when she's nervous about anything) a safe distance away.

4. Meri claims to have only learned that "we get a hat" when we go to the station on a field trip. Which is pretty neat. And a sticker.

5. I listened and learned a lot of cool stuff, but I'm not so sure about the girls. My first clue was when they were jumping around dancing throughout some of his demonstrations. My second clue was when they were trying to climb the basketball pole and slide down during his explanations. My third clue was when it was apparent that it was more important to them who they were standing by than whether or not there was even a fireman in the room. My fourth clue was when I asked them what they learned when we got home and Jell said, "Um... um... well, you were there mom."

More hugs and kisses please

Me: Jell, you're putting that on backwards.
Jell: Oops! Sorry, sorry.
Me: It's okay (as I help her fix it).
Jell: Do you still love me?
Me: What?! Yes, of course I still love you silly.
Jell: Good.

Ah! I guess you never can tell them enough times, huh?

Leaves galore

And while Jell swam her heart out (see new post below) Meri chilled with daddy, watching him work hard from inside the ever-growing pile of leaves. Cutie!

It's just too bad that raking leaves isn't as fun as jumping in them!

Our Swimming Penguin

Loving swim class! She's finally putting her face under the water for bobs and while kicking. Hooray!

And yes, she has an oddly double-jointed thumb that makes her "thumbs up" a little silly. But she's still cute! And she never even complained about being the only girl, which is big for her. :)

Happy Halloweenie!

So sometimes I'm guilty of including way too many pictures in a post. This would be one of those times - but Halloween is just too fun and dressing them up is too cute! Somehow, despite talking about which princess they were going to be for Halloween ever since the 4th of July, they ended up being a frog and a rather glamorous bat (which she chose to be when Jell decided she liked the hand-me-down frog costume. She said, "Jell will be a frog and I will be a bat" as if there were some logical connection between the two). They ended up very happy with the arrangement.

Then, as I have been told, Coop and I chose to be the nerdiest thing we could've possibly chosen to be. I won't insult your intelligence by assuming you need an explanation. If you're still wondering, notice his ear, or the place that used to be his ear is bandaged.
Some of the fun of Halloween is that we get to go show our costumes to lots of grandparents and Aunt Patti and Uncle Jim. Here's a few pics with them: